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So Long. Goodbye. Don’t Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out.

Sarah Palin serves word salad during a panel discussion before a preview of the film “Climate Hustle” on Capitol Hill. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP

This is an interesting enough development to lift the Palin Blackout Curtain and share: SarahPAC, Sarah Palin’s slush fund, has been shut down. Palin has officially shut down Sarah PAC as of the end of 2016.

The Quitter’s money machine has been turned off. Embarrassingly – assuming Palin is capable of embarrassment – in the 2016 election cycle, her SarahPAC spent $830,000 on consultants, $168,000 on travel and lodging expenses and just $82,500 in donations to other candidates. So her political action committee spent about 8.3% of its money on political action and the rest on Sarah Palin. Sweet.

Why now? Does she think her time is past? Nah. The Quitter doesn’t have a trace of introspection. Does she think her “mission” is accomplished? WC supposes it depends upon her “mission”? if the mission was self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement, then certainly not. If the mission was getting complete Republican control in Alaska, then clearly not.

It’s WC’s theory – just a theory, mind you – that SarahPAC was shut down to reduce the risk of indictment. The law is murky, but former Rep. John Doolittle‘s (R) leadership PAC paid 15% to a firm that only employed his wife. Payouts to his wife’s firm were $68,630 in 2003 and 2004, and $224,000 in 2005 and 2006. The Doolittle home was raided in 2007. After years of investigation, the Justice Department dropped the case with no charges in June 2010. We don’t have details on where the $830,000 in “consultant” fees went, but there may be a Doolittle issue. Or maybe her major donors got tired of being scammed. Palin herself is not all that bright, but her lawyer is: close it down before someone looks too closely.

Absent a criminal investigation, SarahPAC is done. Her donors will have to find something better to do with their money; maybe burning it on a street corner for light and warmth. Palin will have fewer resources to promote herself. It’s all good. This isn’t the end of hearing from the Quitter. But it’s the end of one of her subsidies. It’s not yet time for the Munchkin song. But it’s a bit closer.